In the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth criticized this man's artificial diction in works like "Sonnet on the Death of 
In the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth criticized this man's artificial diction in works like "Sonnet on the Death of Mr. Richard West." This man drew upon a Welsh legend that Edward I had all bards there put to death in a Pindaric ode, The Bard. In another poem, "the pensive Selima reclined / Gazed on the lake below" before "she tumbled headlong in" and drowns; that poem is "Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat." The speaker of another poem watches schoolboys play and does not tell them of the sorrows they will experience in life, reasoning "where ignorance is bliss, / ‘Tis folly to be wise." For 10 points, name this author who, in addition to "Ode to a Distant Prospect of Eton College,"  wrote "the curfew tolls the knell of parting day"  in "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard."
In the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth criticized this man's artificial diction in works like "Sonnet on the Death of Mr. Richard West.
Thomas {Gray}